Brookline Infill and Small Developments

MassHousing Closes on $5.5 Million in Financing for 62 New Units of Mixed-Income Rental Housing for Senior Citizens in Brookline

Fifty-seven of the project’s 62 rental units will be income-restricted, with 8 units affordable to extremely low-income residents, 15 units affordable to households earning at or below 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), 26 affordable to households at or below 60 percent of the AMI, and 8 units affordable to households earning at or below 110 percent of the AMI. The AMI for Brookline is $90,650 for a two-person household.

The residential building will be car free for residents, promoting a sustainable development in a transit rich location with access to nearby MBTA subway Green Lines and a bus line. On-site parking will be available for Town of Brookline, ElderBus service and ride-share services.

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From the description in the press release, I think this is the site.

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Hardly rises to the level of earning aB's attention but interesting to see the latest trends in one-percentery. A huge lot for North Brookline, .77 acres, on the edge of a preservation district got split in half and the vacant side was sold off earlier this year for $2.825m (to the CFO of Keurig, if I'm reading the public records right - nice side gig if you can get it). Not sure density is even possible in the district, as a pending 40B across the street is just outside those bounds, but the proposal is the complete opposite: four single family homes on four floors (including basement garages) in two duplex buildings. I'm guessing they will try to get $3-3.5m for each unit. Nice little flip. Granted that the PDF just has untextured and uncolored mockups, but it's freaky to me how neither of the buildings seems to have a coherent front side. I guess if you have your own elevator, what do you care what the outside looks like?
 
I love how these projects visually connect this part of rt9/Brookline to Longwood and Fenway now.
 
ErnieAdams said:

Hardly rises to the level of earning aB's attention but interesting to see the latest trends in one-percentery. A huge lot for North Brookline, .77 acres, on the edge of a preservation district got split in half and the vacant side was sold off earlier this year for $2.825m (to the CFO of Keurig, if I'm reading the public records right - nice side gig if you can get it). Not sure density is even possible in the district, as a pending 40B across the street is just outside those bounds, but the proposal is the complete opposite: four single family homes on four floors (including basement garages) in two duplex buildings. I'm guessing they will try to get $3-3.5m for each unit. Nice little flip. Granted that the PDF just has untextured and uncolored mockups, but it's freaky to me how neither of the buildings seems to have a coherent front side. I guess if you have your own elevator, what do you care what the outside looks like?
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I'm sorry, I don't follow.

They're subdividing this single-family lot in North Brookline and adding 4 additional units in two new two-unit buildings. How is this a bad thing? Are you saying it's bad because the units will be valuable?
 
I’ve always been curious about when this building would be demolished for new development. Walked by today and The Brookline Superette at 18 Pleasant St, Coolidge Corner, was having a sidewalk
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sale and 50% off everything inside. Asked the shop keeper inside and indeed it’s making way for something new. Found this article. Nothing finalized as of yet it seems. https://brookline.wickedlocal.com/n...durgin-development-progresses?template=ampart
 
JumboBuc said:
I'm sorry, I don't follow.

They're subdividing this single-family lot in North Brookline and adding 4 additional units in two new two-unit buildings. How is this a bad thing? Are you saying it's bad because the units will be valuable?
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I wasn't offering commentary other than on the design choices, and lukewarm commentary at that. I said it was 1) for the rich, 2) profitable, and 3) incoherently designed from an exterior perspective (though it's early to say, hence the lukewarmness). No value judgments on the first two qualities. How is this a bad thing? I didn't say this before, but now that you mention it, the design will have a likely effect of contributing to a decade-long homogenization of the neighborhood's single-family and two-family stock, wherein too many of the developers who have flipped one or more of the grand dames nearby have eschewed color, textures and surprises of any kind, and instead have chosen from a narrow and familiar contemporary new-construction pallette of white and dull-khaki vinyl siding, jet-black window frames and copper drainspouts. Examples on street view are legion and I'm happy to provide them if anyone cares. It has always been a moneyed area, but money used to look a lot less boring than it does now.
 
12345 said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1179062173349355526
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It’s easy to get all scoffy about this, but that neighborhood is uniformly one, two, and occasionally (on the Boston side) three family homes. That building is way out place. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be built but I’m not surprised about the Brookline side of the development. I also dont think this says anything, really, about what Boston allows and Brookline doesn’t — Boston almost always makes it hard to build anything that’s this out of context (for better or worse; my opinion is that in most cases for the worse) with the existing neighborhoods; the best you usually get is an incremental change (like a 3 family in a neighborhood of duplexes). I would even go further and surmise that the reason this is actually getting built (the Boston end of it), in this particular neighborhood, is that a very substantial number of the homes on the Brighton side of this neighborhood are occupied by transient college students who are not exactly invested in neighborhood meetings, and thus there may have simply not been many bodies to fill the meetings and fight it.
 
Westbourne Terrace Brookline progress. The urbanism language in the suburban neighborhood works well.
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808 Washington. The rebuilt stone wall looks great!
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5 Washington, Brighton/Brookline line. Site fence is up! Ready for demo in two weeks?
 

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